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As it’s New York fashion week I thought I’d make my usual fashion week series about my favourite movies set in the big apple. Although, fashion weeks come and go and street style changes when it comes to lasting style it’s the big screen that has it all.
As a well styled movie can immortalise a look forever. Yes – the special effects, the soundtrack and of course, the stars are all important – but, for now I am focusing on the best dressed movies.
Some are timeless examples of ‘iconic’ movie style, a few are modern classics with some very memorable ensembles and some are a little more quirky, but nevertheless all chic in their own right.
These movies have eternal style and even now continue to inspire the fashion world in one way or another.
* 9 Stylish Movies set in New York *
MOVIE: Love Story
PLOT: Ivy league college students Oliver Barrett and Jenny are from very different backgrounds but fall in love regardless of their upbringing – and then tragedy strikes.
ICON: Jennifer Cavilleri (Ali McGraw)
STYLE: 1970’s campus chic with wool Peacoats, chunky knit sweaters, textured skirts and slick brown hair that will forever symbolise college style
MOVIE: The Royal Tenenbaums
PLOT: An estranged family of now grown-up former child prodigies and their mother reunites when their father announces he is terminally ill.
ICON: Margot Tenenbaum (Gwyneth Paltrow)
STYLE: Second-hand thrift chic. A Fendi fur coat worn over Lacoste tennis dresses with Bass brown loafers. Finished off with pink cashmere gloves, thick kohl eyeliner and a barrette clip. This movie is the stuff of fancy dress dreams.
MOVIE: The Devil Wears Prada
PLOT: A smart but sensible new graduate lands a job as an assistant to Miranda Priestly, the demanding editor-in-chief of a high fashion magazine, Runway.
ICON: Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep)
STYLE: Coats. It’s all about the coats. More dated perhaps, and of its time than other movies in my list – but if a fashion movie forever sums up a NYC fashion working girl – it’s this.
MOVIE: Sex And The City
PLOT: Four years after the Tv series ended our fave New York writer on sex and love is finally getting married to her Mr. Big. But her three best girlfriends must console her after one of them inadvertently leads Mr. Big to jilt her.
ICON: Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker)
STYLE: Love her or loathe her. No other TV character (or, indeed costume designer Patricia Field) has had such an impact on how women dress as Carrie and her SATC girlfriends have – and New York is forever the fifth star.
MOVIE: Factory Girl
PLOT: Based on the rise and fall of 1960’s socialite and IT girl Edie Sedgwick, concentrating on her relationships with Andy Warhol and a folk singer.
ICON: Eddie Sedgwick (Sienna Miller)
STYLE: Eddie was dubbed ‘the waif’ before Twiggy – with her gamine cropped hair, tight hot pants, mini skirts, striped boat-neck sweaters, shoulder duster earrings and vintage furs – her style forever sums up the 1960’s social scene in New York City.
MOVIE: Annie Hall
PLOT: A neurotic forty year old twice divorced, intellectual Jewish New York stand-up comedian Alvy Singer falls in love with the ditzy Annie Hall.
ICON: Annie Hall (Diane Keaton)
STYLE: Androgynous style of oversized menswear worn by women including loose khakis, tuxedo vests, collared shirts, long scarfs, bowler hat and tweed blazers. The ‘Annie Hall’ look as its now dubbed has had a lasting and continuing effect on how women dress even today.
MOVIE: BUtterfield 8
PLOT: The romantic life of a fashionable Manhattan beauty who’s part model, part call-girl, and all round man-trap who engages in an illicit affair with married socialite and her desire for respectability which then causes her to reconsider her lifestyle.
ICON: Gloria Wandrous (Elizabeth Taylor)
STYLE: Upper East 1960’s cool with Fur trimmed coats and capes, satin slips, alligator purses, leather gloves and possibly one of the most famous black chiffon dresses ever
MOVIE: Desperately Seeking Susan
PLOT: A bored suburban housewife, seeking escape from her life, suffers amnesia after an accident, wakes up, and is mistaken for a free-spirited New York City drifter named Susan.
ICON: Susan (Madonna)
STYLE: Heavily influenced by the style of Madonna in the 1980’s this gritty downtown New York film is infamous for bracelets up to the elbow, fold down pixie boots, black lace, oversized hair bows and of course, the khaki green metallic jacket that started it all.
MOVIE: Breakfast at Tiffany’s
PLOT: A young New York socialite and party girl whose aspirations for glamour and wealth are epitomized by the comfort she feels at Tiffany’s where she believes nothing can ever go wrong becomes interested in a young man who has moved into her apartment building.
ICON: Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn)
STYLE: Oversized Oliver Goldsmiths sunglasses, wide-brimmed hats, funnel neck coats, Tiffany pearls – and of course a classic Mac and a LDB.
Are there any stylish New York movies that you think I have missed?
I love this. Such fab movies. I have always adored everything Audrey Hepburn wears in Breakfast at Tiffanys. Stylish movie. Stylish clothes. Hugs Lucy xxxx
Love this too! Can you believe I have NEVER been to NYC? I know. Disgraeful! Hoping for a mini break there when I turn 40. Super post and very stylish, as ever xx
Love this, Bonita! Ali McGraw is my absolute style heroine. I can’t get enough of films set in NYC. It’s the next best thing to being there. I miss spontaneous travel and drunken nights in the Waldorf Astoria.